One of the fun things about watching a New York City election is that politicians don't feel the same pressure they do in a national race or other parts of the country to come across as regular, red-meat-eatin' Americans.

Al Jazeera America’s first day of television programming began with an hour of self-promotion so urgent that it played like an episode of “The Newsroom,” a passionate condemnation of every other media outlet and a paean to its own righteousness.